


The Healing Effects of Hypothermia

by NeriEsle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Pre-Slash, implied past sherlock holmes/victor trevor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:17:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8158586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeriEsle/pseuds/NeriEsle
Summary: “Say another word, Holmes, and I swear I’ll push you back in that river, just as I should have fifteen years ago.”





	

Sherlock could not have imagined worse circumstances.

The case was barely a 4, but he was so bored, and John had practically pushed him out the door, threatening to blast a marathon of the worst James Bond films if that’s what it took to get Sherlock to move. He’d long since hidden his gun, which in and of itself was laughable, since there was nothing John could hide from him that he wouldn’t deduce in five seconds.

But it was the first nice day in ages, the first sign that spring was nearly upon London, and the sun even cracked through the heavy blanket of clouds above.

So why not?

This was why not, Sherlock thought, climbing out of the Thames, reeking of fish and sewage, his coat nearly drowning him as it dragged him down river with the current. His shoes were ruined, his phone lost, and he would never get the stench of river refuse out of his favorite scarf.

And it as bloody freezing.

Cursing enough to make John proud, Sherlock grabbed the ladder rung he was nearly swept past, and pulled himself with difficulty out of the river and onto the dry, cold street, stumbling over his long coat and numb feet and landing hard on his knees. His hand went to his pocket, fingering the stolen bracelet he’d stolen right back from the group of teenage jewelry thieves who fancied themselves London’s Bling Ring… such an asinine name, really, the youth of today. They’d managed to surprise him by producing a gun and firing wildly in his direction in a panic, forcing him over a bridge and straight into the icy winter-water and far from their over-caffeinated, over-adrenaline, over-sex-fueled minds.

Sherlock spat the river water from his mouth, and kept spitting, very aware of all the bodies he’d helped locate in that same water. He hissed in cold, frigid water mixing with the still freezing air, and he clenched his jaw together to prevent them clacking out of his head with shivers. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, his whole body was shuddering with cold, and was desperate for anything that might provide some measure of warmth, in this icy, wet, blustery, late-winter, bone-chilling, twilight hellhole.

“Sherlock?”

The shock was such that Sherlock stopped shivering. He whipped his head up, flinging water droplets around him, peering through the rat’s nest that his hair had become over his eyes. Perhaps hypothermia had already set in, and he was hallucinating. Because… how… of all times and places and situations, how was it that standing before him was…

“V…V…V…Victor?” Sherlock stuttered through chattering teeth.

It must have been him. It couldn’t have been a hallucination, because Victor Trevor stood there, not quite as Sherlock remembered. He was still tall and thin, though his layers of coat, scarf, gloves, and bag could not quite conceal the slight protrusion of his abdomen, probably from hours spent each week at his local pub, if the stains on his sleeve and ruddy cheeks were any indication. His hair had more grey than its youthful gold, and his eyes were lined, especially between his eyebrows. So he’d gone into the family business, Sherlock realized, and was hating every moment of it. There out of familial obligation, married to a woman… strained… had three… no, two children under the age of ten, and was also taking care of his mother, thus the strain on the marriage. 

Sherlock felt like he’d swallowed a rock.

Victor looked as shocked as Sherlock felt, but only for a moment. Then his face went back to… damn the man, he was the only one who could match Sherlock’s own haughty expressions.

Sherlock looked away, pushing down the feeling churning in his gut. He slowly got to his feet, unsteady and shivering so hard he wobbled and nearly fell over. Victor did not reach out a hand to help him.

“Still doing this, are you?”

“Don’t remember us ever swimming in the river at Uni,” Sherlock muttered, steadying himself on the railing that acted as a barrier to the river.

“No, but I did hear tell of your… exploits… once you finished desecrating my family.”

Damn him. Sherlock couldn’t look at Victor. Instead, he focused on unwrapping the scarf from his neck, but his hands were so numb with cold he could barely grip the damn thing properly, clumsily fumbling with it like a toddler learning to tie its shoes.

“I merely observed,” he said in an even lower tone, unwrapping the sodden scarf from his neck and flexing his hands to get feeling back in them.

“You showed off,” Victor snapped. “No tact, no care or feeling for anyone other than your own ego.”

“It was not my fault that your father embezzled half a million – ”

“Say another word, Holmes, and I swear I’ll push you back in that river, just as I should have fifteen years ago.”

Sherlock wished he would. Sherlock wished he was in the river right now, freezing, sinking to the bottom, anything to get away from the look of betrayal and hurt and hate, searing like ice into his skin.

“Ironic, isn’t it? That we meet here again, of all places,” Victor said, sounding a bit calmer, more collected. “Where it ended. Did you really take your first hit that night, after quitting my company? Were you really such a cliché? Broken-hearted lover, dulling the pain with drugs? Perhaps it was a blessing that it ended before you could prove how utterly stupid you really are.”

Sherlock couldn’t help flinching. His coat was so heavy, weighing his shoulders down, and his hair wouldn’t stop falling in his face, dripping half-frozen river water down his back and off his nose. His body was numb, yet his chest hurt with each word he forced himself to listen to. He had to listen, although he couldn’t say why. He’d listen, then he’d sneak off before Lestrade caught up with him, find the nearest dealer (if he remembered correctly, there was one around the corner that sold the most delectable opiates he’d ever encountered), and find a bolt-hole to lick his wounds and use his purchases to make this failure of a day another dull throb of his past.

“I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long, to be honest,” Victor continued, as though purging himself of years of pent-up anger and hatred. “Although you look like this last swim lesson might actually do you in. How ironic would that be, that I’d get to be here when you finally self-destruct and –”

“Sherlock!”

John. Never in this life had he ever wondered what would happen if John and Victor were to meet. And this… this might be too much to bear right now… He closed his eyes against the destruction rushing at them in the form of a short, blonde, compact army doctor with a voice thick with concern.

“Jesus, you wanker, I told you to wait!”

Sherlock only sighed, eyes still closed, leaning against the railing behind him, too cold and weary to try to change what might happen.

“Oi, you all right? Sherlock, look at me.”

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes, ready to hurl himself backward over the railing and into the river should John’s gaze reflect anything Victor had just released into the world.

But John didn’t seem to realize Victor even existed. He stood directly in front of Sherlock, face hard, eyebrows furrowed, completely in his Medic mode, his blue eyes running over Sherlock’s face and body, assessing. “Your lips are purple. We need to get you out of these wet clothes.” Before Sherlock could protest, John pulled the scarf from around his neck and yanked Sherlock’s coat off hard enough that Sherlock stumbled. John put an arm out to steady him. His arm was warm; Sherlock could feel the heat on his ribs through his clothes.

Behind John, Victor watched them with a heavy, suspicious frown.

“Christ, you’re cold.” John quickly took off his own coat and threw it around Sherlock’s shoulders, and Sherlock nearly groaned in relief as heat enveloped his back and upper arms. He caught himself before any embarrassing noise slipped loose.

“Your lips are blue,” John noted, looking behind him anxiously, scanning the road. Still, he did not seem to notice Victor. “Medics are on their way. Should be here any minute.”

“John,” Sherlock said, sounding drunk and sleepy.

John noticed. “Here,” he said, leaning forward, and Sherlock’s mind stuttered to a momentary halt when John’s arms slipped under his arm and over his shoulder, and they were pressed chest to soaking wet chest. He didn’t know which was more overwhelming… the shock, or the warmth suddenly engulfing his entire being. It pierced him, flooding his senses. He could feel the heat from John’s head against his cheek, feel each fingertip warm on his back, even John’s denim-clad leg pressed against his own skinny thigh.

“People will talk,” Sherlock slurred, watching Victor behind John, who looked angry and… well, he had a look on his face Sherlock thought he recognized. Sherlock had caught that same look on his own reflection every time John announced he was going on a date.

“People are idiots,” John said calmly, thumping Sherlock’s back gently. “And you’re a bastard for running ahead when I told you to wait. I could’ve had those dumb kids disarmed before you felt the need for an evening dip.”

“You’re slow,” Sherlock rumbled, unable to stop his mouth from stretching into a smile, even as Victor kept watching him and Sherlock knew he shouldn’t be grinning in the face of the pain he’d caused Victor, but when Victor was also the living embodiment of every isolating thought Sherlock had ever had about himself…

“You’re nearly hypothermic.” John rubbed his back, probably to create friction and warmth. Sherlock dropped his heavy chin to John’s shoulder, resting his head against John’s. “For someone so brilliant, you’re incredibly stupid.”

Strange that coming from John, that didn’t hurt at all. “Got the bracelet, though.”

John laughed, the movement jostling Sherlock, vibrating in his chest and probably altering the beat of his own heart. “Brilliant. You great stupid tit, that was completely brilliant.”

Sherlock didn’t even realize when Victor left. But suddenly it was just him and John, huddled together on the edge of the river Thames, sirens screaming in the back as the medics finally arrived. Sherlock closed his eyes and grinned, feeling like the sun had burst through the clouds.

And it wasn’t until after John personally gave Sherlock the jabs to fight any infection from the river water, after they’d shared an exhausted yet giddy cab ride home, after John practically pushed Sherlock into the shower and refused to let him out until he’d used up all the hot water, after Sherlock drank the tea John made him, after Sherlock wrapped himself in the layers of blankets John gave him, after sitting through the worst Bond film John owned, and after John slumped against him on the couch, snoring softly, did Sherlock remember, drifting into a warm soft sleep, that he’d even seen Victor Trevor at all that day.

**Author's Note:**

> Last-minute fic inspired by a sad tumblr post. I needed to fix it. Meant for this to be flash fiction... it got away from me just a bit. No edits, no revisions, just a fix-it freewrite.


End file.
